Create an advertorial for Shanti Life

Shanti Life

We help poor women in India access sanitation and build small businesses so that they can be healthy, productive and self sufficient. We work with the poorest women who are unbankable.

The actual print size needs to be 7 1/4" high x 4 1/2.5" wide.

The paper size will be 8 1/2 x 5 1/4"

Can you please show me the paper size *and* the print border. I need to see exactly what will be printed.

This should be a one page advertorial - we need the whole story. Also use only the Shanti Life logo bird and logo not shanti microfinance attached in pics.

I would like you to use the yellow and green from our website http://www.shantilife.org

Keep all the lines very clean and simple. This is a story that will go into a magazine - it's NOT for a brochure so the Shanti branding shouldn't be overpowering. It's about the story. The image of me should be very sharp and a good size as all the readers know me.

I want you to chose 1 pic of the villagers and myself (as the focus) with the story/message (see below) my picture smaller (black and white top).

The audience (readers) are women and I want to promote them to donate and help change the lives of one woman or a community. Bringing women together.
Title:
Reducing Poverty One Small Loan at a Time

Finding venture capital can be a real struggle for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Yet their effort pales in significance when you consider what women living in India’s slums must go through to secure support for their microbusinesses.

Sheetal Walsh is an angel investor who has experienced both sides of this story. She created the Venture Capital Relations team at Microsoft in Silicon Valley during the early dot com years and then later started the same initiative in the UK, representing the EMEA. As Deal Maker (by appointment) for the UK Trade and Investment Global Entrepreneur Program she has worked with hundreds of global start ups.

What fuels her passion now is Shanti Life, an international charity she founded in 2009 with a mission to provide the poor in India with access to seed capital for small enterprises as well as financial literacy and hygiene training. Shanti Life’s holistic approach to solving economic and social problems is extended through the building of basic sanitation in their homes.

According to Sheetal, “many of the women we wish to support don’t have access to sanitation and face a long journey to use a toilet where they risk getting bitten by a snake or being sexually assaulted. Providing an eco-sanitation toilet is often the first vital step in their journey to independence.”

More than 53 percent of Indian homes — about 70 percent in the villages — lack toilets. Poor sanitation and contaminated water cause 80 percent of the diseases afflicting rural India, and diarrhea is a leading killer of children younger than 5.

Shanti Life provides budding entrepreneurs with loans to start new businesses. Rickshaw drivers are usually the poorest of the poor leasing their vehicle from a loan shark who takes the majority of the money they make everyday. Shanti Life breaks this cycle by providing a micro loan for a down-payment so drivers can buy their own rickshaws. This puts them and their families on a better path to a sustainable livelihood.

Other typical micro loans are used to buy sewing machines, set up cooking stalls, or help artisans to develop their textiles for sale.

The model is one of loans rather than grants with all repayments recycled into other local ventures. One of the most unique aspects of Shanti Life is how the charity works directly with loan recipients on the ground. At the time of receiving a loan, every recipient is given a new bank account. By opening an account, the poor finally make it onto the financial ladder of independence. It also helps Shanti Life to ensure a smooth repayment audit trail while minimizing its own overhead costs.

Repayment rates are almost 100 per cent with women going on to become role models in their community, creating a network effect.

Shanti Life provides loans ranging from $100 upwards and has a range of interest rates capped at 12 per cent, making it one of the lowest interest rates in the microfinance industry.

How you can get involved

You can help the disadvantaged get their new businesses off the ground or improve the wellbeing and dignity of women by funding the installation of a sanitation unit in their home.

To make an investment that keeps on giving as the repayments are recycled into new loans, go to shantilife.org/donate or email the founder Sheetal Mehta Walsh at sheetal@shantilife.org

Shanti Life is a non profit microfinance institution (MFI) with charity status in Canada, USA, UK and India.

The smallest font should not be less than 9pt. It should be easy to read. And work with fonts that you typically see in magazines.

Final files needed by Friday evening San Francisco time.